Let’s Get Loud: Ten Jennifer Lopez songs that defined her career

Pop star is reminding fans of her musical pedigree with new greatest hits tour heading to Abu Dhabi

Jennifer Lopez has a catalogue that spans genres and personal reinventions. AFP

Jennifer Lopez is back on the road.

The Up All Night: Live in 2025 tour kicked off on July 8 in Spain and is set to stop next at Abu Dhabi’s Etihad Arena on Tuesday. The show is a greatest hits set, blending early classics like Let’s Get Loud and Jenny from the Block with tracks from This Is Me... Now and her latest song, Wreckage of You, which she performed on stage for the first time earlier this month.

With a career spanning more than two decades, Lopez has an expansive catalogue, covering everything from RnB, pop, EDM, Latin ballads and trap, sung in both English and Spanish. It shows an artist who, despite the fame, the peaks and the backlash, has yet to lose her drive. This tour isn’t a comeback but an affirmation of where she is today.

Here are 10 songs that soundtrack that evolution.

1. If You Had My Love (1999)

Glossy and emotionally distant, J-Lo’s debut single isn’t really a breakup song and more like the coda to one. There’s no pleading, no anger, just a cool detachment, as if she’s already walked away. Its distant tone is what makes the track interesting. It’s not a kiss-off but a finale. The production is sleek and the vocals are composed while Lopez sounds capable and assured, proving to naysayers she could sing. It is smart and calculated start.

2. Let’s Get Loud (1999)

Originally written by Gloria Estefan and her husband Emilio, the song was first considered for Estefan herself. But she felt the track – with its vibrancy and urban pulse – was better suited to a younger artist. Lopez, then on the cusp of launching her music career, took on and owned it.

You can still hear Estefan’s imprint throughout: the congas, the brass and the chant-like chorus. It’s the sound of Latin pop being rejigged for a mainstream stage – something Estefan pioneered, paving the way for artists like Lopez and Shakira.

Where If You Had My Love kept things cool, Let’s Get Loud puts Lopez's vocals in the front and centre. It’s full of attitude and became a staple of her live shows, from Vegas residencies to stadiums and sports events around the world.

3. Love Don’t Cost a Thing (2001)

With its percolating percussions and streamlined groove, it is an almost a picture-perfect snapshot of early-2000s RnB. The sound is sleek, mid-tempo and driven more by attitude than vocal fireworks.

A reason the track works so well is Lopez herself, as she serves the song. The delivery is sharp, each line clipped with precision. The lyrics became a kind of cultural slogan, a meme before memes were a thing. At this point, Lopez was in transition to full-blown pop star and you can hear that confidence all over the record.

4. I’m Real (Murder Remix) with Ja Rule (2001)

When people talk about the track, they’re almost always referring to the remix with hip-hop star Ja Rule. He was at the height of his run back then and his rumbling verses gave the piece the grit it needed. The original version felt flat by comparison. This remix, though, was hazy, unhurried and full of the kind of RnB-rap chemistry flavour defining the early 2000s. Lopez’s soft, sultry coos is a great foil for Ja Rule’s raspy raps. It was a great collaboration, and a chart-topping summer hit.

5. Jenny from the Block (2002)

Maybe it was inspired by the movie roles she was taking at the time, but with this track, Lopez fully orchestrates her origin story. The samples – from The Beatnuts and Boogie Down Productions – nod to her hip-hop influences, but the bigger play here is brand-building.

This was less about the music and more about shaping the J-Lo identity: grounded, street-smart and media-savvy. It worked then – but the same strategy hasn’t always resonated. You can draw a straight line from Jenny from the Block to the more calculated moments in her later career, like the misfire of her latest album. This was one of the times she got the balance right.

6. Get Right (2005)

Lopez has a bunch of tracks that feel like outliers and Get Right is one of them. Built around a squawking sax loop and twitchy percussion, it’s one of her most rhythm-driven songs. There’s no real hook to speak of, just forward motion.

The vocals are clipped, staccato, almost functioning like another part of the beat. It works though. The whole thing holds together, and it quietly marks one of her first proper steps into club territory – something she would go on to perfect with On the Floor a few years later.

7. Que Hiciste (2007)

This marked Lopez’s move into Spanish-language pop – taken from her album Como Ama una Mujer – but instead of chasing the bright pop energy of someone like Shakira, she leaned into balladry.

The production is heavy on cinematic strings and slow builds, but what really stands out is how it opened up her voice. Unlike her RnB material, which is often heavily treated, this kind of Spanish-language pop demands vocal umph – and Lopez rises to the occasion. It’s one of the few records where we hear her relatively unadorned vocals. While it didn’t make much noise in English-speaking markets, it remains a well-regarded effort.

8. On the Floor with Pitbull (2011)

By the the blazing track arrived Lopez had been relatively quiet on the charts for a few years. Hence she went to Moroocan-Swede RedOne – one of the hottest pop producers at the time – best known for his bombastic, dancefloor-ready work with artists like Lady Gaga. The result was On the Floor: a stomping club-ready track that takes the familiar Lambada melody, gives it a new bassline and turns it into a stadium-sized banger.

Lopez, ever the strategist, released the song in tandem with her debut as a judge on American Idol, ensuring maximum exposure. And it worked, with the song introducing her to a new generation of fans while still giving a nod to her Latin roots. Even if the whole thing feels a little too calibrated, it still sounds glorious. It topped the charts in more than 20 countries and brought Lopez back to pop’s top tier.

9. El Anillo (2018)

Coming with its dose of real-life drama, as fans linked the lyrics to the approaching dissolution of her relationship with then-partner and baseball athlete Alex Rodriguez, the real change here is musical – with Lopez stepping deeper into Latin trap that was gaining ground through artists like Bad Bunny and Ozuna. Earning a Latin Grammy nomination, El Anillo proves Lopez still does her share in evolving in the evolving Latin pop space.

10. Wreckage of You (2025)

Jennifer Lopez, whose 2025 tour reflects decades of musical evolution. AFP

Lopez’s latest song, which premiered live in June during her tour stop in Spain, forms one of the most dramatic moments of the show – a stripped-back piano ballad that sounds more like a confession than a performance. “Thank you for the scars you left on my heart,” she sings. “Now watch me climb out of the wreckage of you.”

How you want to interpret that is up to you. Is it about Ben Affleck? It doesn’t really matter. It’s a big, inspirational ballad about life after divorce. Her fans will lap it up and it could very well shape the sound of whatever Lopez is working on next.

Jennifer Lopez performs at Etihad Arena on Tuesday. Doors open at 7pm; tickets from Dh795